Tag: scenery

I love the serenity and calmness of the first shot, yet in the second photo find a severity that is exciting: that ‘hand’ of the storm coming down from the heavens, ready to unleash some major damage on us mere mortals in a matter of moments.

Those ‘moments’ came in a massive downpour only 10 minutes later.

I like to appreciate the little things in the every day, and seeing the stark contrast between dawn and storm, going to and from work, is something small to look forward to.

Yes, even when it is a work day.

The scenery, set amongst the cold, grey freeway… just reminds us how much more powerful and vast Mother Nature is. No man-made structure can top her strength, influence and impact.

And again, the photo-taker on this day was my trusty in-car robot assistant… 😉

I think you might just be killing the gratitude game if you, like me, are finding things to be appreciative of when driving to work.

What?! Happy and grateful, going to work?!

It’s true, it’s true. And what was on today’s special forecast for gratitude you might ask?

Sunrise, foggy landscape, and music.

Simple, but sooo awakening.

First up. I loved these photos my ‘car personal assistant’ took while on the M3. The first is of the pretty pink sky, and in the next photo you can even see the fog along the horizon.

Of course, my ‘car personal assistant’ didn’t really do the scenery any real justice, you just had to be there to see it for yourself. But, you get the picture (pun totally intended).

Second, the music. It was 6am, and all the music coming out of FOX FM was pretty damn good. It wasn’t just all repetitive commercial crap: I found a few current boppy ones I liked, yes, but the playlist interlacing all the recent stuff seemed to be from a few years back, and they were all songs I liked. The songs that had me bopping and singing along even before I had any breakfast in me, were:

Cosby Sweater – Hilltop Hoods

Shape Of You – Ed Sheeran

Firestorm – Kygo ft. Conrad Sewell

I Don’t Wanna Live Forever – Zayn ft.Taylor Swift

Shine – Years & Years

She Wolf (Falling to Pieces) – David Guetta ft. Sia

The whole point of this gratitude journal is to show all the different ways and places that gratitude can be found… and if you can achieve that on a cool Saturday morning on your way to work, after only 5 hours of sleep… then I think you’re doing ok.

On the last day of our holidays, we went to a place that has fascinated me for quite some time.

I heard about the failed chairlift when we first holidayed in Arthur’s Seat sometime in 2012. All I knew was that there had been a chairlift, there had been an accident, and therefore it wasn’t in operation anymore.

However, following our recent Sea Change, the chairlift was recently revamped and reintroduced late last year, and my curiosity spiked ten-fold once again. Made more so by the fact that here I was, living in my dream location, and friends of mine were driving over to the area and going on the chairlift, before I even had a chance to!

Grrr, argh.

Today though, following a cloudy morning, bliss:

I’ve decided it would be amazing to view the area in each season: so now we can tick off Abundant Summer, then follow it with Shedding Autumn, Still Winter, and Flowering Spring, to see the changes in atmosphere, in landscape, and just generally in Life.

And also, my urge to go many more times as soon as possible is that baby girl will get in for free for only another 8 months.

If you have the opportunity I urge you to go. It is a truly meditative experience.

I have these revelations while driving in my car. Maybe because it’s usually quiet and I’m alone with nothing but my thoughts. And when you’re driving home and the path is familiar, you tend to focus less on your surroundings, and more with what is occupying your mind.

‘And when you’re driving home…’ yep, we’re home alright.

That was where my thoughts led me today. I was trying to rush home from work, and was close by, thinking of how Hubbie and Baby girl were waiting for me, ready to jump into the car and off we would go to do some very late, very brief afternoon shopping. Better something than nothing before Christmas.

I noticed around me the bushy landscape, the golden fields stretching out beyond them, and the hilly road I was on… and despite the rushed state I was in, I thought ‘yep. We did good.’

We’ve done good. I don’t care that it takes me longer to drive to and from work. I don’t care that I spend more money on petrol. I don’t care that I need to leave earlier to get to places on time.

I don’t even care that we still haven’t started properly renovating. I don’t care that it’ll probably take another 5-10 years ’til everything we want is complete to our standards. I don’t even care, that this house, is older than our last.

I don’t care about any of these things. Sure, I want them, and I would like to improve on them… but they’re not that important.

Today I was officially made a beach gal. Since I am now permanently beach-bound, how many times do you think I can find appreciation for the beach, in a blog where I find a new and different piece of gratitude each and every day?

???

LET ME COUNT THE WAYS.

Today for example. At Mount Martha, with baby girl and my big sis. Today I was extremely appreciative of the endless water views and breathtaking coastline…

I was going to write about a completely different gratitude post this morning, inspired by the peaceful blissfulness of the rolling hills and sun rising in the distance as I drove into work… but another day.

Today, boxes.

Boxes, boxes, boxes. Or in my joyous case today, lack of.

We did it. Tonight we tackled the pile of boxes that had been left to gather dust in the corner of our kitchen/meals area. We have a little nook to put them into while we wait for our kitchen reno, so they are still visible, but they are out of the way and neat and tidy, which is where the points come in peeps. I took out what I used most from the boxes, we condensed those boxes into even fewer boxes, and then Hubbie positioned the boxes like a real-life Tetris game, into the kitchen nook.

Ahhh. We actually have free room to move in our meals area! We started running with baby girl just for emphasis, and even she was rapt.

I know it will take time, but I am grateful we’ve taken this first huge, massive, monumental step.